GFS 25th Anniversary

Yesterday we had the 25th anniversary celebration for Grace Family Sanctuary Banting. The celebration was held at Jugra Hall, and Sunday service was shifted to Saturday evening for a combined service for all 4 languages. It's a massive scale meeting and the worship team came out in such a full force. The best of them were up on stage and the sound was especially crisp. It felt for a moment as if I was in a mini mega-church for a moment with the booming sound and lights..haha. We had various performances from the different language congregations and this was followed by a message. It was great to see Pastor Long back at Banting because it's been 10 months since we last heard him speak! The anniversary celebration rounded off with a wonderful dinner and some really crazy photoshoot sessions..haha.

I wanna take this opportunity to also reflect on the time I have spent at GFS, considering that I have been attending there every Sunday for more than 1 year already. Indeed, I'm being blessed in many ways at GFS. The first time I went there, I didn't really consider changing because somehow I felt at home there. I had the opportunity to serve at the worship team and also fellowship and learn with many other brothers-and-sisters in Christ. Pastor Long and Pastor Vic have both been a sort of church-father figure to us and I'm thankful to know them personally in my life. It never fails to intrigue me that graduated students working in KL and other places like Grace, Kevin, Hin Loong, Jonazan and Gerald that they would still return back to GFS for Sunday service eventhough there are bigger churches in KL itself. For those of us uni students who are willing to go there every Sunday despite the 30-45 minute trip, it speaks volume that many of us also felt the attachment to GFS.

I think many of us who went there regularly will continue remember that little church at Banting town although we may be at other places. GFS may be small in size but it certainly has faith-like gigantic dreams. The amount of students that has pass through the place in the past and being touched by its ministry is countless. I pray that many more students will be blessed through this way in the future and may the Lord add another 25 years of blessing to GFS :)

Pizza Farewell

It seems that the 3 semesters that we have this year had different styles to end off in CG. For the January semester, it was the one which I've always familiar with, lunch at Pizza Hut. Then our term at May semester was a huge combined CG lunch session at KFC. It's just buckets of chicken. Then this time, we decided to something different also. We are having a farewell lunch session just like fellowship lunch but we'll be delivering the pizza right at the doorstep of SC-1-1a. It's a massive effort coordination since we need to go around collecting money and also take into account of the number of people coming.

After class today, Erwin and me went to Pizza Hut but it was not open early in the morning. We needed to wait until it's 11 before we could order. So meanwhile, we went to chill out at Secret Recipe first. When it was 11, we went there but apparently, the staff there are so slack that they don't open on time. We ordered 14 large pizzas altogether but we were kinda surprised when the cashier told us the total amount to be paid which was way smaller than what we anticipated. We double confirmed with her and she confirmed it back. We scratched our heads, thinking that maybe we may be getting cheaper pizzas afterall. Later it was revealed that she punched in regular instead of large, so that explains the smaller amount. We expected to wait about at least 1hr but surprisingly, all 14 large pizzas were done within 15 minutes!

After dealing with the pizza, we went to Giant to get some ice cream soda to mix with the concentrated orange juice. We managed to settled everything on time. One of the problems that we thought that we would face was that we may have a shortage of pizzas to go around. But praise God, for some reason or so, there was enough pizza to go around for everyone to have their stomachs filled. For the farewell ceremony, it was time to say our goodbyes to Yvonne, Shue Li, Xue Yi, Jessica and Sophia. We wish them all the best in their future destinations and may God bless them in everything that they do. Among the five, I would know Sophia the best since she's my churchmate and we do hang out from time to time for shopping and movies. Sophia's been one of the old guards of the CF seniors, and indeed, she's one of the last of them to leave. I really wanna thank her for helping me out in coordinating the transport matters on Sunday morning and yup, she's one of the coolest sister-in-Christ I've ever encountered. She plays computer games and has very good reflexes for sports btw..haha. Best of all, she has a knack for finding fun too..lol. Thanks for being a great sister Sophia, and I wish you all the best for your studies in New Zealand! :)

Hmmm..looking at all those leaving people make me ponder and reflect that my time will come soon enough and the next time that it happens, it will be me. It's already close to 5 semesters and time flies fast indeed. Well, it's a continuous rite of passage. One more semester before a new chapter in life is written on a fresh new page.

Missions Field

Today was Missions Sunday emphasis and somehow, today's sermon reminded me of the time when I went for my first missions trip in 2003 to Chiangmai, Thailand. It was quite an experience to travel further north beyond the Malayan Peninsula. Haha..I could still remember vividly of taking Brunei Airlines to get to Bangkok Airport and then travelled by almost 8 hours plus to Chiangmai. Once we were there, we went up to the mountains and stayed in the village there for around two days, bringing medical supplies and any sort of necessity that the village may need. Seeing the church in the wilderness of a village and people just coming to the Lord in simplicity without the glamour of urban landscape is really a unique encounter. They all do praise God in their respective language and ways :)

Anyways, the weather up the mountains was extremely cold especially in the morning and I could literally see the water vapour coming out from my breath. My time in Chiangmai was spent contrasting between the life in the city there and life in the mountains and observing how the Thai people go about their lives. Ohhh..and I remembered getting Internet there is like getting gold..even with 28kps connection just to get onto Friendster (as it was famous then)..ahaha. On the lighter side, after the mission trip, I kinda had a phobia of Thai food especially Thai Fried Rice and Thai Fried Kway Teow because those were what I had been eating for the one week that I was there..lol.

Overall, I've learned a lot from that trip and it does open eyes to see the world beyond the one which we are comfortable with. For the missionaries that go to the ends of the earth to spread the Good News, God bless you in the various works that you have been doing :) Jim Elliot's quote still rings true ,"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

The Resistance

I've been wanting to write a review on this since it's release in September, so here it goes. Another one of my most anticipated album release from one of my all-time favourite bands. I did a preview of the album here when United States of Eurasia came out. The Resistance draws heavily the inspiration from George Orwell's 1984. Most of the songs in The Resistance are related at least to one aspect of the novel. My two personal favourites in the album are "Resistance" and "Unnatural Selection".

The first track, "Uprising" has quite a catchy tune to it and I love the music video! It features the band moving through in a truck through some sort of toy city and then there are giant teddy bears tearing the whole city apart..haha. Weird and wacky,but that's Muse alright. "Resistance" depicts the love story of Winston and Julia and it summarises perfectly how their love forms a kind of resistance against Big Brother. "Undisclosed Desires" is one song which is very RnB sounding. Not exactly my favourite but I gotta give credit to Muse for venturing into there and making it sound good with their instruments. Alongside with "supermassive Blackhole", Matt Bellamy shows that he can do RnB if he wants to..haha. That just goes to show how rock musicians can be flexible and venture into other territories but it rarely happens the other way round. =p

"Guiding Light" comes in beautifully right after the jet plane roar in USOE. The track does remind me a little of "Invincible" from the Black Holes album. "Unnatural Selection" starts with an electric organ and progressively builds up with electric guitar. I like the word play at the pre-chorus with the double high-hat taps. 'Droplets in the ocean' is an obvious reference to Oceania and Winston's strong resistance in becoming part of Oceanic society mob mentality. The draggy chorus just makes me wanna scream out aloud "I want the truth!"..haha. It ends off with a superb guitar riff but it's a pity coz it's very short. I hope that they do somehow increase it's length in their live performances. If you wanna have some education on conspiracy theories, then "Mk Ultra" comes in handy. I did a search on it and it seems that Mk Ultra refers to a secret mind-control programme that the US government and CIA engages during the 1950s and 1970s. It's all the LSD stuff and Ken Kensey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was inspired from there after he himself volunteered for the programme. Next up would be the last vocal track of the album, "I Belong To You". This is quite an interesting track because this is has a fusion with the French style of music. Not to mention when Matt Bellamy starts singing in French afterthat..haha. I wonder if this is a romanticised depiction of the French World War II resistance fighters where they are famously known as just The Resistance. Btw, this song is gonna be used for the new Twilight movie, New Moon. It's the second time where Muse's song is used in that series because it seems that the author Stephanie Meyer is a big fan of Muse.

Aha..now comes the epic part - Exogenesis Symphony Parts 1,2 and 3. This massive collaboration is insane. 15 minutes of pure genius. Muse actually gathered a symphony band to play together with them. I can tell that even if someone were to hate all the other songs in the whole album, they cannot deny that the last 15 minutes of the album is just fantastic. And I know the Europeans are liking it alot because it's their style of music..haha. Not sure about the Americans though. =p One aspect that I enjoyed about The Resistance is the use of some really nice classical piano techniques and it gives the album an excellent top-up.

Overall, I like all the songs in The Resistance, with the exception of Undisclosed Desires. I think it's a job well done by Muse. More importantly, it's time to look forward to all the new creativity and spontaneous acts that they are gonna put into their Resistance tour. It's looking good at their homecoming gig at Teignmouth Devon and the excellent performance at the MTV VMAs. I love the solo that Matt puts at the end of Uprising..haha. I really hope they could add on more riffs on the other songs, especially Unnatural Selection! Mhmmmmm...I'm wondering whether they would consider coming back to KL for another round of tour. Please do consider about it Matt! xD

Thesis Marathon

It's another insane rush of torrential panic to finish off a thesis but this time, it's done in a fun way because it's my favourite subject, Public International Law! At least I'm thankful that I'm not pillaging through piles of legislations like land registration or company statutes. Most of the stuff that I'm reading are quite familiar, just that it's now fitted with a legal perspective rather than just mere politics. I'm quite fortunate in that Friday's class was cancelled and this meant that after Thursday's class ended 12pm, there was only one thing to do all the way till deadline on 5pm Friday. It's straight on "chiong-ing" marathon and this mean that I would even sacrifice sleeping at night if need to. As of Thursday afternoon, my word tally stood at a lousy 200/3000. I've actually wanted to start doing way earlier but I kept getting stuck in trying to finish a huge pile of meeting minutes that I need to do for the secretary book since this week is the submission week.

Night time was a little distracting to me with the irresistible food bazaar happening below. I managed to finish only 600 when prayer meeting+dinner time came. Anyways, 5pm still did sound like a long time and at 12am, I slept for 3 hrs until 3am where I got up and stayed up ever since then to rush through 2400 over words. The thing about thesis writing is that it's like crafting a piece of wood. It can easily be finished within 2hrs if I wanted to. I will just throw in a few citations and be done with it. However, that kind of shoddy work will only earn a measly amount of points that is passable. And when it comes to thesis writing, I put in extra effort to think extra hard to craft in the right words to make it into an enjoyable read. Not only that, it'll also be a good reference for my archive of essays..haha. Considering that is public international law, there is no way I'm going slack down in this area where every history-related or politics essay has to be done to a quality standard because it's a work of art. =p

It's kinda mind-suffocating to think of the right words that strike the right chords within such a short time. The room is already so stuffy with the heat and staying in for a marathon of 12 hrs plus without eating lunch too was just numbing. At the end of it all, I felt like puking from nearly being suffocated but the product came out good. I think it's done as best as it could come up, and so I'm quite pleased with it. I managed to hand everything up on time to my lecturer and it's kinda good timing that she was still in her room. After handing up, I do feel the relief all over my body. This weekend is gonna be a relaxing without any worries about nagging datelines and massive workload. Well, time to take a little short break and chill out before the mid-sessional exams period comes.

Equalizing the scales

Carrick wheels away in relief as the Black Cats pondered in despair after Anton's own goal

It was expected to be a stroll in the park for Man Utd as Sunderland pays Old Trafford a visit. That was on paper at least because that didn't happened. The Black Cats proved problematic to the United side instead and needless to say, in-form striker Darren Bent netted just within 7 minutes to put the visitors up. Bent has really performed well so far in the season with a healthy goal return and he's looking far more deadlier like his Charlton days than during those old times when he was shut cold at Spurs. Even when Sunderland is losing, he still manages to pop in a goal. United had a lot of work to do to salvage the situation but the response was below par. The players knew it that they were not playing at the standard that was required. They were finding it hard to break down Sunderland's defensive line and Gordon had very little to do since the shots were all going off target.

Fergie showed that he wasn't going to risk anyone getting sent off by sending in Anderson to replace Scholes. At the 51st minute, Berbatov equalised with a marvelous bicycle kick. Well, Berba looks strangely enthusiastic and energetic for these past few games. He's beginning to chase after the ball and even make the runs for the through balls. Let's hope he'll continue this way before he starts to slump back to his slacking ways..haha. It looked like after equalizing, United will start to swarm Sunderland but again, that wasn't the case. The equalizing joy was shortlive as Man Utd found themselves behind again after Kenwyne Jones pitted himself on physical collision with Foster and headed it into the empty net. There are reasons to call in foul there because it looked as if Jones had smacked Foster before heading in the goal. But still, Foster should have handled the situation better since as goalkeeper, his amount of strength to grab hold the ball and shove away any attackers should be more than the opposing strikers. For the next 30 minutes or so, Man Utd were desperately hunting for an equalizer but they were not getting any. There many close shots but none of them were going in and Nani was one of the culprits who wasted his position placement by shooting the ball into oblivion.

Patrice was not going to let it go down to a lost, and in the dying seconds, his shot got deflected off Rio's brother, Anton. The older Ferdinand would have expressed his gratitude to the younger Ferdinand for the wonderful gift. Different Ferdinands, different teams but same eccentric mistake. It runs in the family..hahaha. Another last minute escape for United in any case as they prevented a shocking and embarassing Sunderland win at Old Trafford with a 2-2 draw. Although it's a fair result, both teams would still be disappointed since United expected themselves to kill off the Black Cats while Sunderland rued the lost their chance in snatching a vital and infamous win at Old Trafford. Fergie would have reflected on his choice of first eleven but currently, he's in hotsoup again with the FA for his remarks and ranting that Alan Wiley is "not fit" to be referee.

A missed opportunity by United meant that Chelsea had the chance to climb back to the top and they succeded in doing that by pounding the Scousers 2-0 at the Bridge. I was backing for a draw since it would make things remain at status quo. The loss meant that the Scousers are looking nervously at 3 losses already. On the other hand, the Gooners smashed Blackburn 6-2 with Captain Fab in his uber ulti mode with 4 assists and 1 goal. It's still early in the season and we are not even halfway through the season yet, so anything could happen in the future.Looks like Chelski could enjoy being at the top of the table for at least two weeks since the international set of matches will bein place next week.

Fraser Hill LTC

Last weekend was spent at Fraser Hill for the Leadership Training Camp. On Friday, we gathered at the Sports Hall for some briefing, ice-breaking and team planning. The thing that really shagged us for the night was the treasure hunt around campus where we needed to move from one end to the other constantly. By the time everything ended, it was almost 1am plus. We slept at the hall after the activities and I would say all of us had only about 4hrs or so of sleep since we need to get up by 6 on the next day to board the bus.

Saturday was the main day of the LTC since we'll be setting off to Fraser Hill. This was my first time traveling there, so it will be interesting to see how it is different from Cameron or Genting. At the bus, most of the people dozed off quickly to catch up with lost sleep. When we reached the foot of Fraser Hill, it gets interesting because we're going to go up the windy roads. Of course, there were some worries that people may vomit from the dizziness but I'm ok with that after years of playing First Person Shooter games..haha. As the bus climbs higher, every bend that it goes through was kinda traumatising because the bus was just a few dozen centimeters away from te edge. One wrong move by the driver would see the entire bus tumbling down. Uggghh...I've never felt my life being made so cheap at that time. It's RM55 btw..lol. We were "compelled" to sign a death liability form before we come and that makes it even cheaper because they want to prevent the dead from claiming legal remedies...hahaha. But I don't think that's of any use because from the legal point of view, I doubt the law excuses people who are negligent in causing the death of others. Anyways, the first bus that was in front of us did got stuck at one of the bends. The driver had apparently misjudged the distance and as a result one of the tyres got stuck at the clay. The whole busload of people needed to come down since again, if the bus goes rolly polly, a whole dozen people are going to go GG. It took about 15 minutes or so to get back on track.

We were supposed to have breakfast down there but since we arrived there super late, it was lunch straight away. The breeze at Fraser Hill was cooling and the buildings at the town center does look like those from Cameron with the British cottage style. The rooms that we stayed in are quite good. It's an apartment with 3 rooms and 3 people are assigned to a room. The best thing is that we get our own attached bathrooms. We had another amazing race/treasure hunt activity and that took up almost 3 hours. Our team didn't really go full blast. We took our time to enjoy the sights and scenery of the place. The cool environment up there did spawn up some very intereting fauna and flora. Night time was conference with Intima to discuss the various roles that each committee member is placed in. After all the activities were done, it was free time to chill out and relax.

The dining area beside the reception became some sort of casino den because the different tables were playing different stuff with the poker cards. One group was engaged in heart attack while our group played Werewolves/Mafia. Lol..we are spreading this game around rapidly campus after our Subang camp. Haha..I was the Werewolf at the first round and I managed to win the game and get away with all the kills =p. I thought that I would miss the Man Utd game since we were at the top of the hill but they do have Astro at the reception area to my delight. So, after the first round, I excused myself to watch the match. Lol..who would have thought that I could catch a footie match at the top of Fraser Hill?

I was greeted the next morning with a beautiful view of the highlands and the cool breeze. There was conference with SAO after breakfast. Most were dozing off in their chairs. The drama presentation period afterthat was kinda entertaining with all the mimicking and one of the most classic line ever uttered was "a group of sperms..." Hmmmmm..I wondered who said that.. xD. At the end of it all, it was very tiring but it was good in a way coz I got to network and know the other committee members from other clubs and societies. Well, it's back to business as usual at campus now that it's the weekdays.